


A Little Chat part 3: An Alternative Version of Events

by Polerfan1986



Series: A little chat Series [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mild Language, Rumbelle ending, There is Rumbelle angst in this story, Warning: This story starts out as very anti-Belle but does have a Rumbelle ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 07:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6973003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polerfan1986/pseuds/Polerfan1986
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just because Belle has become such a pain in the ass over the past two seasons.  OUAT Belle always was a wet blanket anyway when it comes to Rumple’s powers but she’s gotten worse and worse as the show has gone on and I can safely say I’m sick of her at this stage.  I also just want Rumple to have a fresh start now, somewhere away from the half-assed hypocrites trying to parade themselves as heroes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Chat part 3: An Alternative Version of Events

She found him in his shop. He was in the backroom reclining in his seat with a glass of his best whiskey in hand. He had summoned his spinning wheel and was planning on camping out in the back of his shop for the next few hours. He had no intention of going back to the house, to the home they had shared, no not after what happened, not after what Belle had done. He refused to capitulate to her anymore he was done feeling like he was being beaten into submission not to use his magic.

He remembered the incidents back in the dark castle with Belle’s “friend” Samuel who tricked Belle and tried to use Pandora’s box to capture him until he banished him to a swamp and Robin Hood stealing the bow from the dark castle and how he had called Belle a foolish, gullible girl who filled her head with too many poisonous thoughts about heroism from her books and she had proven his words to be right ever since.

It made his head spin at how fast she allowed others to take advantage of her, to use her and how quickly she would listen to the advice of those who couldn’t care less about her, those who would try to harm both her and himself or use her against him. Yet she wouldn’t listen to him, he who loved the very ground she walked on as she well knew because she used it to manipulate him and wrap him around her little finger often enough. He knew he was far from perfect at times but by god belle had never even given him a chance to explain anything it was always her way or the highway. 

He shook his head and sat at his spinning wheel, needing to spin, the more he thought on what she had done the more heart sore and soul weary he became, he found himself needing to spin, to clear his mind and escape from everything around him for a while, lest his temper boil over.

There was a knock on the shop door, “sod off we’re closed” he shouted to which the knocking promptly stopped. The sound of the bell ringing had him out of his seat in seconds and emerging from behind the curtain prepared to yell whoever it was right back out of the shop when he saw Belle standing at the counter. She placed a cup of coffee and a burger on the counter in front of him, his head snapped up and his eyes were fixed on her. “A peace offering” she said quietly.

“I think it’s a little late for peace offerings dearie” he said his voice eerily calm and the look on his face unreadable.

“Rumple, what’s going on?” she asked a lump of ice having settled in the pit of her stomach as she noticed half of the display units in the shop were now empty.

“What’s going on" he began "is your attitude and behaviour to me of late and how I’ve just recently come to the conclusion that I’ve had enough of it. I know I’m not perfect Belle, very far from it in fact and I have my faults many of them as we are both well aware but I'm not the only one everyone else here has their faults as well yet I’m constantly persecuted for mine time and again by you and the rest of the people in this little armpit of civilisation."

"No one ever gives me a chance to explain what I’m doing, you and everyone else in this town always jump to conclusions and end up making the situation ten times worse than it would have been if you’d just listened to me in the first place and then I get blamed for it. Your behaviour to me has been naïve and selfish. I know you haven’t always approved of my methods but everything I’ve been trying to do has always been for the good of my loved ones. There was always been a method in the madness.”

“If I had done things your way, people would have been hurt” she replied.

“Oh Belle, wake up and open your eyes, people were hurt anyway, if you had let me do things my way we would have been celebrating our safe return home long ago, you wouldn’t have put yourself in the position of going to Zelena" he snarled at her "or into a sleeping curse which I warned you against and that you were so sure your father was going to wake you up from but he didn’t did he?"

"I told you that you were only going to make things worse by doing that and as usual you didn’t listen to me, and things are a lot worse Belle. Look around this town, look what Hyde and his friends have done to it and the rest of the people living here all because I had no choice but to turn it over to him, to gain the necessary knowledge to wake you up from a curse THAT YOU PUT YOURSELF UNDER” he shouted.

“You have been expecting me to bend over backwards, to go out of my way to accommodate you which I have been and do things your way all the time, and deny my magic, the same magic that has been in my life for so long that it’s become a part of me. That isn’t true love dearie that’s just you trying to change me into a different person, to get me to reject a part of myself, to suit you and your little ideals of heroism. I will remind you that it was my magic which saved your friends, family and kingdom from the ogres the day we first met, you didn’t have any objections to me using dark magic then did you? But then you never do as long as the magic is used to suit your purposes and make you feel like you’re a hero, as long as you get to be judge, jury and executioner as to when and how it’s used, isn’t that right Belle?”

“Rumple I know I wasn’t always willing to meet you halfway but can’t you see I was just trying to help you be a better man” she told him.

“No you haven’t met me halfway in anything dearie and you trying to make me a better man is the crux of our problem, you can’t accept who or what you married!” he stated, “you never really have, you always have to try to assuage your own guilt at falling in love with ME and marrying ME, the dark one, the beast not just the man, don’t you Belle? You can’t help yourself trying to fix what you perceive to be broken thanks to that hero complex you have. Did it ever occur to you that I am not the one that needs fixing in this town or in this relationship, or that not every single syllable that you read about heroes and villains in those precious books of yours is true?"

“I always wanted to be a hero to live up to the memory of my mother Rumple” she said indignantly.

“Well dearie" he retorted "a good hero you do not make, you’re a narrow-minded, sanctimonious, wilfully ignorant little hypocrite who’s idea of “fixing people” involves manipulating and controlling them including your own husband to get them to accept your way of doing things."

“Tell me Belle, you’ve already used my love for you to manipulate me and wrap me around your little finger, I’ve lost count of the ultimatums you’ve given me and if I hear another I think my ears may start bleeding and when manipulation hasn’t worked you’ve resorted to the dagger three times at the most recent count to control me in order to try and get your way, how long before you try to use our child to emotionally blackmail me as well hmm?”

Belle gasped throwing her hand over her mouth and sobbing “Rumple how could you even think that, what an awful thing to say!” she exclaimed in horror.

“Perhaps you missed what I just said" he snapped "let me give you the cliff notes version, emotional blackmail and manipulation and then when that didn’t go your way using the dagger to control me, and that’s to say nothing of you allowing the so-called heroes in this town to use you against me as well so unfortunately it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine you using our child against me in a fit of desperation.”

“I. would. never. NEVER. use. our child. against. you” she protested through her sobs.

“I don’t believe you dearie" he retorted, "I have no reason to trust you anymore after what you’ve done, the straw that broke the camel’s back was you going to Zelena and taking that sleeping curse on her advice. The woman who locked me away for a year and killed my son Belle, you’re not an idiot, you knew what that would do to me, how I would feel, what I would think, but you didn’t care you went ahead and did it anyway.”

At those words Belle’s hands slid over her face as she sobbed even harder, it wasn’t easy hearing how much she’d hurt him and seeing how high he’d rebuilt the proverbial walls around himself thanks to her actions or knowing that he was now as emotionally wounded as he had been the day she first met him in her father’s war room.

“You are right about one thing though, you will never use my second child against me” he told her.

“Why, what are you going to do?” she choked out.

He paused and then jerked his head in the direction of the backroom, “come on through dearie and see”. Belle immediately noticed the suitcase sitting on the floor at the foot of the cot when she entered the room.

“Are you going somewhere Rumple?” she asked with the feeling that she was not going to like the answer.

“I traded Storybrooke to Mr Hyde to gain the knowledge I needed to wake you up because that good for nothing father of yours refused to help you on the grounds that I’m still alive" he replied. "So I now no longer own any of the properties here except the house and the shop both of which I have sold, I’m moving on to pastures new dearie, I’m already packed, you will retain full custody of our child, I will never take the baby from you, but much as it pains me I will not be a part of our child’s life because sadly as long as you refuse to truly accept me for all that I am, I can’t trust you not to use our baby against me.”

“You’re leaving me” she gasped a look of horror on her face.

“Yes Belle I realise it makes quite a difference from our usual splits because for once I’m the one walking away but I’m sure you’ll soon get used to it once the divorce comes through and you no longer have to carry the guilt of marrying me on your shoulders.” His voice was getting higher in pitch and Belle could hear the imp coming through strongly now as he spoke and she was reminded of the day he turned her out of the castle. “You could at least have had the decency to tell me how you truly felt about the beast from the beginning instead of stringing me along, you would have saved us both a lot of heartache” he told her. 

“I don’t want you to leave” she sobbed and he sighed handing her a tissue.

“I’m sorry dearie but that ship has sailed and I am leaving Storybrooke for good. However I will make you a deal seeing as you suddenly seem so concerned about my leaving you. I’m staying here in the shop for the next few nights to make sure everything is packed up and sent on to my new home. However I wouldn’t object to some company and it could easily be our new home as opposed to just mine but I have conditions, if for whatever reason you do decide that you truly love and accept me and want to be with me then meet me back here in the shop before Friday morning and we’ll leave town together but be prepared to forget about everyone who isn’t us or the baby because the pathetic so-called heroes in this town have proved many times over that they don’t give a rat’s ass what happens to us and one more thing Belle if you do decide that you want to come with me as per the terms of our previous deal it’s forever dearie, I won’t tolerate anything less.”

“What if I don’t meet you here before then, what if I decide I want to stay here?” she asked trying to put on a brave face and squaring her shoulders.

“Well that’s quite simple dearie, I’ll leave without you and you know me well enough by now to know that I of all people can cover my tracks quite well, and that neither you nor anyone else in this town will ever find me again unless I want to be found."

“Although to be honest I can’t see why you would want to stay here in this rat hole of a town when your only company will be a father who never credited you with enough intelligence to choose your own husband and those poor excuses for friends who haven’t given either you or the baby a second thought. I on the other hand have done as you wished, I got rid of the contract on the baby and brought you back from the underworld. The mess this little town is in right now is your fault for taking that sleeping curse and your father’s fault for not waking you when I asked him and forcing me to use the only other available option, so I will leave this town to its fate with a clear conscience my dear whether or not you wish to join me is up to you.” 

“I need to go” she said her face was red and eyes were puffy and watery from crying. “I can’t be here right now…I need to go” she spoke through sobs.

“Yes well if you’ll excuse me Belle I must get on with packing my things” he said to her back as she swiftly turned away from him.

She felt numb inside and sick to her stomach as she left the shop clutching her as yet non-existent bump. She hadn’t even thought to ask him where he was going not that he would have told her anyway. She needed her library, she needed to sit in silence and solitude for a while and think things through and as she began mulling things over she knew in her heart that if the situation was reversed and he had wronged her the way she had wronged him recently, she would have been absolutely livid and would have walked away from it all without saying a word or giving him the option of joining her, her heart ached that everything had become so screwed up. Could she honestly picture herself staying in this town and raising her child alone without Rumple and with memories of herself and him all around her like ghosts everywhere she looked, she curled up in a chair at the back of the library, hugging her knees as she sobbed.

Back in the pawnshop Mr Gold continued packing all of his things away, he used an enchantment to make the shop appear the same as always to any passers-by as he wanted to keep his and hopefully Belle’s departure as quiet as possible. He took another glance over the documents which held their new names and identification. He smirked as he gave his papers the once over, he was to be a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He swore to himself that if Belle did come with him he would show her the world and they were going to start with the west coast.

By the time Monday morning rolled around in Storybrooke, both the pawnshop and the imposing pink Queen Anne sat completely empty, stripped bare of every item they had held and with sold signs outside both of them. The library had unusually been locked up for several days and Mr Gold’s Cadillac was gone. It was remarked by the other townsfolk that neither Mr nor Mrs Gold had been seen in the town since Thursday evening when David Nolan had seen Belle lock up the library and make her way to the pawnshop. 

Speculation was rife, “You reckon they just upped sticks and left overnight?” Grumpy asked in the diner.

“Why not, Gold certainly has the money to make it happen” Emma replied.

“Did they leave any messages, surely Belle at least must have left something?” Mary Margaret asked.

“There was only one and it wasn’t from Belle, she didn’t leave anything except the library keys, I guess she either didn’t think we deserved a message or didn’t think we’d care enough about her leaving to want one” Regina replied.

“Well given our attitudes to her safety and that of her child recently I can’t say I blame her, I found it stuck to the front door of the house this morning when I was making my round of the town" David said. Both he and Emma had still continued making unofficial patrols even though Hyde had long since replaced them as the official sheriff and deputy with two of his associates.

“What does it say?” Emma asked him, so David began to read aloud fully aware that all ears in the diner were listening.

“Dearies, I’d say it’s been a fun 33 years living in this little cesspool of a town but it hasn’t, you’re going to have to find a new scapegoat to blame all of your problems and troubles on. I’ve grown weary of always being labelled as the villain of your stories while those who have committed far worse acts than I are given a pass and I will not be sorry to see the back of your hypocrisy and double standards either.”

Love and hate,

Rumplestiltskin 

…Meanwhile on the other side of the country a Dr and Mrs Rush where snuggled up in bed sleeping off the jet lag before unpacking their luggage and settling in to the beginning of their new lives in California.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so I haven't watched the season 5 finale episodes (and I have no plans to watch them at the moment nor to tune in for season 6 until the writers start treating Rumbelle right) so I only know about Jekyll and Hyde from recaps and reviews that I have read.


End file.
